Using the Oral Tradition in the Classroom Terry Blackhawk

Language Arts Journal of Michigan Volume 6 Article 6 Issue 2 Beyond Bindings and Boundaries

1990 The iG fts of Story: Using the Oral Tradition in the Classroom Terry Blackhawk

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Recommended Citation Blackhawk, Terry (1990) "The iG fts of tS ory: Using the Oral Tradition in the Classroom," Language Arts Journal of Michigan: Vol. 6: Iss. 2, Article 6. Available at: https://doi.org/10.9707/2168-149X.1656

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understand differences among folklore. popular culture. and art. Students sometimes have great difficulty appreciating j ustwhat might make anobject or literary piece a work of art instead of an entertaining or pleasing folk creation or product of popular culture. Helping students develop an understanding and appreciation for art (Including folk art) is one of the THE GIFTS OF STORY: central long-term goals ofmany English teachers, and this unitcould provide USING THE ORAL TRADITION IN a foundation for a later examination of the relations among folklore. popular THE CLASSROOM culture. and art. Terry Blackhawk A final long-term goal of the unit Is to increase students' interest in folklore and their understanding of Its relation to literature. Discussing folklore Is an excellent way to make connections between students' everyday lives and the literature theyare reading. Folklore topics and themes areoften One way to move students beyond the literal and figurative bindings found in literature since literature Is written about people, usually people of written text Is to restore to the classroom the power and pleasures of the who live in a society and thus have beliefs. customs, and practices that the oral tradition. In ~e Spark that Inltlates Learning: Oral Language in the artist depicts consciously or unconSCiously as he or she creates the world Classroom," Doherty provides us with useful insights into the notion of the of literary work. All students have folklore in their lives, and pointing out oral classroom-that is, a classroom which encourages and respects stu and diSCUSSing the folklore in a literary piece and the similarities and dents' oral culture and uses thatculture as a bridge toward literacy. Doherty differences between It and the folklore that Is part of the students' lives can reminds us that students' primary language is oral, not written. Their be an excellent way to foster a critical consciousness about culture while medium (and thus their message) is the spoken word. A sto:tytelling making literature come alive for students. approach, which makes use of students' own oral culture as well as the oral tradition that has come down to us over the centuries, can help foster an encouraging, respectful environment in the classroom which enhances Works Cited language learning of all kinds,

Brunvand, Jan Harold. 'The Study ojAmerican Folklore: AnIntroduction. 3rd I like to draw a connection between my exposure to the recent revival ed. New York: Norton. 1986. in sto:tytelling and my growth as both a writer and a writing teacher. Some years ago, I became aware of the nationwide resurgence of sto:tytelling. I Dickens, Charles. A Christmas CaroL 1843. New York: Puffin-Penguin, 1984. attended workshops with local tellers. Journeyed to Jonesboro. Tennessee Naylor, Gloria. Mama Day, New York: Ticknor, 1988. for the annual festival sponsored by NAPPS (National Association for the Samuelson, Sue. Christmas: An Annotated Bibliography. New York: Preservation and Perpetuation of Sto:tytellingJ. and found. time and again, Garland, 1982. the enchantment of story. In these settings I felt like a child again; and. Shor. Ira. and Paolo Freire. A Pedagogy for LIberation: Dialogues on although I was not aware ofitat the time, I tWnk now that those experiences Transforming Education. South Hadley, MA: Bergin & Garvey. 1987. helped to "recharge" my imagination. which hadgone dormant through years of diagnostic/prescriptive teaching. Tentatively. I began to tell a few stories Smith, Robert Jerome. "Festivals and Celebrations." Folklore and FolkliJe. Ed. Richard M. Dorson. Chicago: U of CWcago Press. 1972: 159-172. in my own classroom. Then. after a transfer from junior high to high school and an assignment to teach basic writing classes, I discovered how story Thomas, Dylan. A Child's Christmas in Wales. Boston: Godlne, 1980. could serve to nourish writing for both me and my students. Sarah Henderacm teaches in the EngHab Department at the University of Portland in Portland, Oregon. 28 29 .....,.

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The embrace ofstoryand the oral tradition has enriched my teaching family's experiences during the C1v:Il Rights Movement, Lana. for example. in a number of ways. In a literature class it provides opportunities for the discovered that her father had organized a union and won an anti-discrimi students' own life experiences to connect with the literature we study. nation class-actionsuiton behalfofhisco-workers in theearly s1xt1es. Tonya Students learn that writers do not lead lives that are intrinsically richer or wrote ofher uncle's experiences in Vietnam, which seemed to help her better more interesting than anyone else's. Rather, writers bring powers of understand her feelings about his personality and the problems he was observation and the ability to create enhanced meaning from the stuff of facing. ordinary life. By helping students realize this, a storytelling approach Storytelling also builds bonds between teacher and students and encourages them to create their own stories in response to literature and helps us become what Macrorie calls "vulnerable teachers." By this I take to deal with Significant and universal themes in a personal way. Macrorie to mean that we must approach students not as authoritarian In a writing class, students' own stories can help turn the classroom embodiments of the Right Answer. but rather as meaning-seekers who are into a celebration of who we are. But beyond the obvious motivations of ourselves part of the community of learning we attempt to shape with our communication and acceptance. working from personal stories has other students. My sharing of my own stories with students is part of this benefiCial effects on students' writing. Family stories enable students to vulnerability. I want them to know me as a person and a writer. I want them utilize topics for writing that have been rehearsed and that already have a to see me groping for topiCS and starting from nothingbutmy own life story just as I ask them to do. Thus I model inventing in front of the class. I jot story structure. Such subjects help us sidestep the notorious "bed-to-bed~ pieces. because the story has been told (I.e. structured) atleast oncealready. down several memories as possible topics and ask them to decide which I usually ask students to recount stories they have already told to others topics seem most interesting. I try to keep my mind clear so that the topics or ones they have heard their parents or grandparents tell about them. "Tell are as spontaneous as possible. Then I ask the students to select a single about the time when... ~ is a good direction, as those final three words often topic they want me to pursue, after which I practice the techniques of signal a story that can be told well. exploration I want them to follow: brainstorming. clustering, free-associ ating, etc. I discuss the thoughts that are occuring to me as I write down Sharing stories orally with the whole class or in small groups also my words. Interestingly. I often discover new insights for myself as I write helps students develop a sense of audience. When students bounce ideas atthe boardor overhead projector. This often feels risky, but thevulnerabiUty off one another prior to writing them, not only is their thinking sharpened is exhilarating. It also establishes trust. If I am willing to share personal but also their sense of the audience's perspective. Also, when we respond discoveries and feelings. it gives students permission to do the same. to one another's oral stories. we may appreciate humor as well as question unclear moments. "Developing writers,· as Doherty says. "are often not Modeling or giving examples means that I share not only my expe sensitive to the reader's examples. In an oral classroom, the class becomes riences but also the stories of my students. It's a sort of teacher-as-grtot the audience and requests concrete detatIs when necessary" (41). This give role, imitating the oral historians of African tradition. Each year I add to and take is especially helpful to students with weak writing skills, many of my repertoire ofstories by students I have taught over the years. Students whom are quite skillful as tellers of tales. An expression ofinterest by their enjoy hearing the stories ofothers, which in turn gives them Ideas for stories peers about the events of their lives helps motivate such students to move of their own to write or tell. I love to share, for example. the story of how from the spoken to the written word. James' parents met one another. His mother and grandfather-a great baseball fan- were in the bleachers at a minor league game one day when Using personal stories as sources for writing can also lead to personal the right fielder made a diving catch that landed him in James' mother's lap. growth as students deal with issues that extend beyond the classroom. It The two had never met. but destiny and love ran true. She married the can mean learning new things about one's own heritage or developing new outfielder, and hence we hadJames to tell the tale, although we do speculate insights into family situations. From an assignment to investigate her on the course of James' history If the batter had. say. struck out.

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Many wrtters, of course, draw from the oral tradition in their work. imagination from throughout the world. It gives us entry into a world which and I have had the good fortune to bring several wrtters to work with my both "is" and "is not." It is magtc and metaphor. and, as in these eerie lines, classes on a regular basis. Playwright and noveltst Bill Harris has led the embodiment of paradox. No matter whatourage. we can still be touched discussions with students about the dynamics of shaping a story. He has and transformed by story. helped students consider what to highlight in a story, as well as where to As Bettelheim has established, ancient stories can impart deep begin and where to end, who are the s1gn1ftcant actors and who are psychological meaning. By inviting professional storytellers as guests, by peripheral, which is the best voice in which to tell a story, and so on. All using their audio and videotapes, or by telling stories I have learned myself, of these choices, he has pointed out to my students. are choices made by I bring this ancient tradition into my classroom. I also encourage students storytellers. Mr. Harris often connects his discussions to the oral tradition. to read from various folklore collections, and I collect and share poems that He has shared stories from his childhood. Sometimes he has had us focus are based on myths and legends. Writers have for centuries been influenced onJust one or two questions, such as: How didyour family come to be where by ancient myths and legends, and contemporary poets are no different. they are? orWhat stories do your grandparents tell aboutyour parents when Women writers, in particular, have appropriated old myths as an act of they were little? Such questions can open up a world of story. redefinition or to sound feminist themes. Margaret Atwood's "Circe/Mud Another Detroit wrtter who has been to our classroom is Naomi Long Poems,~ Katha Pollitt's "Penelope Writes," or LucUle Clifton's "this belief' Madgett. whose work also connects with family history. Her latest volume which uses motifs from "Jack and the BeanstaIk" in a strong anti-racist of poetry, Octavla and Other Poems. has recently been adopted as a statement-areJust a few examples ofmodem uses ofancient tales. Ancient supplemental text by the Detroit Public Schools. The poet used letters. stories, with their extraordinary imagery and themes of abandonment, documents, interviews, and family stories to recreate the life of her aunt, rebirth, Journeys, and transformations, provide rich source material from Octavia, who died several years before she was born. These beautiful poems which students may express feelings and moods. Storytellers often say that represent an ongoing research into family hiStory and recreate an eraas well they don't select stories, but stories select them. I learned to teU "The Seal as the life ofan individual. After we readand discussed these poems. I invited Skin," an Icelandic tale retold by Lynn Rubright, after such a "finding." It Ms. Madgett to visit my classes to share her writing with students. Not only tells of a man who steals a seal-malden's skin and thus prevents her from did connecting the written word with the living author add a magical leaving her human form and resuming her seal's identity. He marries her dimension to the students' experience of the text, but the presence of both and she bears him seven children and is a good wife to him until she one Mrs. Madgett and Mr. Harris also encouraged students to discover the stories day comes upon the key that opens the forbidden box in which her sealskin of their families. is hidden. Despite great inner conflict. she puts the skin on and returns again to herwateryworld The themes ofthisstory (identity, betrayal, choice. Ancient stories are another source for inspiration within a classroom the magic ofmetamorphosis) as well as the setting (Midsummemight's Eve, that partakes of the power of the oral tradition. an island, Scandinavia. a hut, a cave) all struck chords for me. and I felt compelled to learn the story. Under the earth I go On the oak leaf I stand I ride on the filly Much creative thinking can take place in students when they hear That never was foaled a storysuchas"The Seal Skin." The following poem waswritten by a student, And I carry the dead in my hand. (20) with whom I had no prior interaction. immediately after she heard me tell This beautiful Celtic story opening, collected by Livo and Rietz. captures for the story at the Olivet Summer Institute for Arts and Sciences. me another potent gift of the oral tradition: the world of imagination. For To Huldar story does not only mean the personal stories we use to construct our individual and family histories. It is also the ancient repository of human Sand works its way between my toes i ~ and my heels sink as a wave blankets my feet. !~ jl~ 32 33 ....,.

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The water is cold and the salt stings my legs. The imaginative experience of story can be sensory, spatial. or Can you remember the way hot dirt sifted kinesthetic, and can help add these dimensions to students' writing. I may under your feet and in your sandals? ask students to select one scene from a story and describe It simply by Or the way wheat grains feel when you clutch at them starting with "I can see.... " If I tell the Chinese tale "1he Stonecutter." for but they escape through the holes example. the group may describe the stonecutter watching the approach of your fingers make? the emperor's parade. What is on the horizon? In the follOwing example, I do not understand why you chose Sophia draws on her experience of the story to create a descriptive scene. the smooth blanket of the sea over the feel of fleece against your skin as we lay covered by the night- As the stonecutterchopsathis latesttask, he seesa little yellow bee dancing from flower to flower in the multicolored joyousness of Why you chose the underwater over me. .. its life. The bee moves with a trance-like rhythm, wings fluttertng • and the stonecutter smiles a lopsided grin. He continues his work. Lana Ackroyd chopping with long, hard strokes, when out of the comer of his eye he sees chUdren running happily to greet the supreme leader of the It is evident from Lana's poem that the apprehending ofa story is an active land. He drops his equipmentand runs toward the sun, stops to wipe the sweat coming down from his brow, then continues on, his destiny event that goes far beyond mere Mexposure.' It is a creative process. an act in sight. Making it to the roadjustsecondsbefore the emperor passes, of imagination. While I have I1ttle storytelling training, I have found that he bows down in complete satisfaction. when I tell a story. I somehow enter the world of that story. I tell It from within my imagination. And when students listen, they do the same thing: Sophia Richardson they create the world of the story for themselves, We may all hear the same i words when Sarah McCoy tells about the African girl going into the river for her necklace. But each one of us creates our own river. For some it flows After students write and share their visions,I point out the various I north or south, for others east or west. You may see It overhung with thick ways they have used sensory information. I try to move from their specific growth. My river may have a dry wide bank or a steep muddy one. Because writings to note general techniques they are often not aware of using: one a story is so rich, students will find different scenes, characters, or images student may be especially sensitive to sound, another to color, a third to that resonate for them. texture. In general1t is more helpful to discover and highlight examples of these approaches from within the student's actual writing, rather than to Often we wantto do nothing with a storyIn the classroom except savor begin from an externally imposed directive such as Mbe sure to use three it. ButIfwriting Is ourgoal (as Itoften is), storycanenhancestudents' writing examples from the five senses." A story provides us with a common experiences in several ways. Itcan. for example. provide us with a common imaginative experience from which to conduct discussions such as these. sourcefor playlngwith voice orpointofview. Suggesting that studentswrite And sharing their writings in class leads students to appreciate the wide to, about, or in the voice of one of the characters Is usually enough to get range of details their imaginations can produce. them started in this vein, but specific exercises can also help stimulate their imaginations. Storyteller Mary Hamilton suggests telling a story as ifit were Ancient myths and stories provide excellent source material for the hottest gOSSip you ever heard. Rewriting a story from the point ofview writing. They provide students with imagery, objects. and situations which of a minor character or an inanimate object in the story can also be a lot enable them to perform literary transformations on the material of their own offun. Katherine MachanAal's poem "Cinderella's Mice" probes thesituation lives. LaTrese, for example, weaves an allusion to Narcissus with the of those small creatures suddenly swept up in something much larger and intensely felt imagery of her poem. grander than themselves. something that felt like destiny but let them down

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Dreams In the Wind dimension to that community. Both ·strands· ofstory- the imaginative and Like Echo the personal- present powerful sources for writing and for helping us to Your loveless life is worthless learn better who we are.

Without purpose or being, With wasted dreams Works Cited On a fool like Narcissus Whose only love was himself. Aal, Katharyn Machan. ·Clnderella's Mice.· TheNational Storytelling Journal So when he left you, 4 (Fall 1987): 24. Disappearing in a cloud of mist, Atwood, Margaret. Selected Poems: 1965-1975. Boston: Houghton Miffltn Your heart rose up Company, 1976. Like a glowing comet Bettelheim, Bruno. The Uses ojEnchantment: The Meaning and Importance That came dashing to earth oJFairy Tales. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1976. Smashed and broken " Clifton, Lucille. ·Fifteen Poems.· American Poetry Review (September, October 1987): 3-7. Leaving you With only his memory Doherty, Lucia 'The Spark that Initiates Learning: Oral Language in the Classroom.· Language Arts Journal ojMichigan 5 (Spring 1990): 34 And name to whisper 42. Through the trees, Ltvo, Norma, and Sandra Reitz. Storytelling: Process and Practice. Littleton, And broken fragments CO: Ubraries Unlimited, 1986. To console your heart. Macrorie, Ken. A Vulnerable Teacher. Rochelle Park, NJ: Hayden, 1974. LaTrese Tillman Madgett, Naomi Long. Octavia and Other Poems. Chicago: Third World But why Insist on using these stories as oral activities? Why should Press, 1988. we tell stories or encourage students to tell personal tales? Do we waste Pollitt, Katha. Antarctic Traveller. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1983. precious instructional time merely telling tales when the richness of stories could be transmitted as easily on the printed page? Ltvo and Rietz explain Rubright, Lynn. 'The Seal Skin.· The National Storytelling Journal 5 (Spring/Summer, 1988): 25-26. the value of maintaining and respecting an oral tradition as follows:

Storytelling is a literary activity, an art form in its own right, and the Terry Blackhawk teaches EngHsb at Mumford High School in Detroit, vehicle for the practiceand preservationofa literature. It isanancient Michigan. and precious legacy. Its apparent ephemerality, that it must be preserved through...oral language, is its great strength and accounts for its general accessibUtty to people of all ages and across cultures. (19)

It is the magic of the listening experience that, I believe, so totally engages the students' imagination In a storytelling event. There is a kind of peace that settles over the classroom during a story and a sense of sharing and community. Telling and hearing one another's personal stories add another

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